GT World Challenge<\/a> Australia race winner Brendon Leitch and TA2 racer Brent Collins will test with the team.<\/p>\nAt the end of Wednesday\u2019s evaluation, Team Kiwi Racing will settle on its driver for Bathurst, who will get a test day to themselves on Thursday at Winton.<\/p>\n
The car they will drive is an ex-Erebus Motorsport Holden ZB Commodore engineered by Terry Wyhoon.<\/p>\n
The plans were hatched as part of 25th anniversary celebrations since their first full V8 Supercars season in 2001.<\/p>\n
The team made its V8 Supercars debut in the 2000 Bathurst 1000 with the late Jason Richards and Angus Fogg in a Holden VT Commodore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to announce that Team Kiwi Racing will be returning to Bathurst. It\u2019ll be 25 years since we first campaigned our full season in V8 Supercars with Jason,\u201d John told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have a Kiwi team, Kiwi car, Kiwi crew, Kiwi driver back on the grid at Bathurst, albeit via the Super2 Series, is pretty exciting for everybody that\u2019s involved with Team Kiwi Racing \u2013 the drivers that we are providing the opportunity to, the sponsors, and New Zealand supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
John labelled the Bathurst drive a \u201clife-changing\u201d opportunity for the selected driver.<\/p>\n
![\"Brendon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brendon-Leitch-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Brendon Leitch with Cameron Crick. Image: Rhys vanderSyde<\/p>\n
The candidates are all in very different stages of their career. Leitch has established himself as a GT gun-for-hire who has flirted with a Supercars berth.<\/p>\n
He tested with Matt Stone Racing at Sydney Motorsport Park and has remained on the fringe of the scene, racing against Supercars drivers in GT World Challenge Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrendon is obviously a world-class driver,\u201d said John.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had obviously been watching for a number of years, as everybody has.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we reached out and said there\u2019s an opportunity he said, \u2018I\u2019ll be on the next plane back from America and I\u2019ll see you at Winton\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hasn\u2019t driven a Supercar at Bathurst as yet, but he has driven the GT cars there, of which he\u2019s had success with pole position.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a very talented New Zealand driver on the international motorsport stage, which is really what Team Kiwi Racing is all about with providing those opportunities to move from domestic to international \u2013 and here\u2019s something new for Brendon.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Pither-PremiAir-trending-in-the-right-direction.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Chris Pither last drove for PremiAir Racing in Supercars. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n
Pither is a Super2 Series winner who last raced in Supercars in 2022 with PremiAir Racing and wants to return to the co-driving fold.<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll be something of a reunion for Pither and John, who started his Supercars career with Team Kiwi Racing in 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris has driven with the team previously and has always kept in contact,\u201d said John,<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a talented driver in his own right, but he wants to secure the opportunity for co-drives in the main game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis opportunity provides that option for him to show other teams in the main game that he deserves a seat, so I\u2019m happy to have Chris involved<\/p>\n
John described Collins as a \u201cwildcard\u201d by comparison.<\/p>\n
A racing all-rounder in his own right, \u2018Bones\u2019 won the inaugural Toyota Racing Series in 2005 but never made the leap overseas for lack of opportunities, according to John.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of people in New Zealand say they will support him with such opportunities over the years, but none of those actually were followed through with,\u201d John explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have made that commitment that we will put him in the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the inaugural winner of the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand and has had considerable success in New Zealand championships in touring cars as well as truck racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re happy to provide that opportunity to local, homegrown talent such as Brent as he goes head-to-head with Brendon and Chris.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see at the end of the day who fits the bigger picture and we\u2019ll make a decision to move them forward to Thursday\u2019s sole test day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team Kiwi Racing alumni include Shane van Gisbergen, Andre Heimgartner, Fabian Coulthard, Paul Radisich and Craig Baird.<\/p>\n
The latest effort by Team Kiwi Racing comes after an ill-fated attempt in 2021 to get on the Bathurst 1000 grid.<\/a><\/p>\nA livery is set to be revealed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mock-up of a proposed Team Kiwi Racing livery from 2021 (for illustrative purposes only). Speedcafe can reveal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,1058,213],"class_list":["post-572983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Team_Kiwi_Racing_Mock_up_Bathurst_2021_wildcard.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA mock-up of a proposed Team Kiwi Racing livery from 2021 (for illustrative purposes only).<\/p>\n